<
https://marker.medium.com/the-ed-sheeran-problem-or-how-the-record-industry-got-what-it-asked-for-3ce2a929542d>
"You might have seen Ed Sheeran’s triumphant statement about his victory in a
copyright lawsuit that alleged he’d copied elements of Sami Switch’s “Oh Why”
in his song “Shape Of You”:
https://twitter.com/edsheeran/status/1511631955238047751
Sheeran’s statement makes two critical points: first, that there are only so
many ways of arranging English words and musical phrases, and with 60,000 new
songs being released to Spotify every day, there will inevitably be some
coincidental duplications of words and melodies.
That’s an idea that’s been in the air for a hell of a long time. Spider
Robinson won a Hugo in 1983 for a short story called “Melancholy Elephants”
where the widow of a legendary musician tries to talk a U.S. senator out of
extending copyright terms on the grounds that it will result in every
copyrightable element of every art form being under copyright forever:
http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html
It’s also an idea the record industry fought like hell against. Take the
Bridgeport Music case, which resulted in a judgment that a two-second sample,
distorted beyond recognition, could still constitute a copyright violation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeport_Music,_Inc._v._Dimension_Films
The industry long took the position that any taking of any kind should be
controlled by the “original artist” — while simultaneously undergoing waves of
consolidation that ensured that whoever the “original artist” was, they’d end
up signed to one of three labels, in a deal that required them to sign away
these ever-expanding rights."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
